The project's target group is the general public of Belgrade's suburbia and smaller cities in Serbia. The theatrical democratization project will be developed among three axes:
- The search for new ways of maintaining sustainability for independent theatre
- The creation of an artistically challenging work, nevertheless accessible and relateable to general public
- Reaching of a new audience through touring of venues that are traditionally unusual for theatrical performances in the Belgrade suburbs / smaller cities in Serbia
1- Sustainability ways research.
Towards an effective and coherent strategy for sustained independent theatre in Serbia, the producer and a sociologist will conduct field research to determine:
- where in the Belgrade suburbs / small cities in Serbia does a potential audience exist and how best to reach it.
- how to induce this constituency to pay the equivalent of two-to-three packs of cigarettes to attend a play.
- how best to take advantage of the existing institutional structures at the local level to introduce the play into their “streams”; what will the role of local clubs, neighbourhood networks, committees, unions... be.
2- The performance
Through the production of a performance dealing with the rise of nationalism in the 1990s, we would like to once again design and build the means for coexistence here and now.
The community, and the society at large has not only been the victim of violence that has profoundly affected it, it has also been its author, albeit unintentionally: it allowed it happened or did not prevent it. Then, such fundamental issues as "who are we as a people?", "What is the state?", "What will happen to us ?"... require new answers. Individual and collective self-representations must be re-evaluated and re-designed.
3- The decentralized tour
Against the dictates of populism and consumer society, we assume the right of all to ideas and beauty. Culture has sadly neglected one of its most basic tasks – making social connections – as the trend of separation between elite upper-class art and mass culture has accelerated. This project intends to bridge that gap by performing the show in 20 different venues in Belgrade's suburban areas in the course of one month, and after in other smaller cities in Serbia.